THE
WAR OF WOMEN.
BY
ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
BOSTON:
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
1903.
THE VICOMTESSE DE CAMBES.
I.
Two days later they came in sight of Bordeaux, and it became necessaryto decide at once how they should enter the city. The dukes, with theirarmy, were no more than ten leagues away, so that they were at libertyto choose between a peaceable and a forcible entry. The importantquestion to be decided was whether it was better to have immediatepossession of Bordeaux at all hazards, or to comply with the wishesof the Parliament. Madame la Princesse summoned her council of war,which consisted of Madame de Tourville, Claire, Lenet, and her maids ofhonor. Madame de Tourville knew her arch antagonist so well that shehad persistently opposed his admission to the council, upon the groundthat the war was a war of women, in which men were to be used only todo the fighting. But Madame la Princesse declared that as Lenet wassaddled upon her by her husband, she could not exclude him from thedeliberative chamber, where, after all, his presence would amount tonothing, as it was agreed beforehand that he might talk all he chose,but that they would not listen to him.
Madame de Tourville's precautions were by no means uncalled-for; shehad employed the two days that had just passed in bringing Madame laPrincesse around to the bellicose ideas which she was only too anxiousto adopt, and she feared that Lenet would destroy the whole structurethat she had erected with such infinite pains.
When the council was assembled, Madame de Tourville set forth her plan.She proposed that the dukes should come up secretly with their army,that they should procure, by force or by persuasion, a goodly number ofboats, and go down the river into Bordeaux, shouting: "Vive Condé! Downwith Mazarin!"
In this way Madame la Princesse's entry would assume the proportionsof a veritable triumph, and Madame de Tourville, by a détour, wouldaccomplish her famous project of taking forcible possession ofBordeaux, and thus inspiring the queen with a wholesome terror of anarmy whose opening move resulted so brilliantly.
Lenet nodded approval of everything, interrupting Madame de Tourvillewith admiring exclamations. When she had completed the exposition ofher plan, he said:—
"Magnificent, madame! be good enough now to sum up your conclusions."
"That I can do very easily, in two words," said the good woman,triumphantly, warming up at the sound of her own voice. "Amid thehail-storm of bullets, the clanging of bells, and the cries, whether ofrage or affection, of the people, a handful of weak women will be seen,intrepidly fulfilling their noble mission; a child in its mother's armswill appeal to the Parliament for protection. This touching spectaclecannot fail to move the most savage hearts. Thus we shall conquer,partly by force, partly by the justice of our cause; and that, I think,is Madame la Princesse's object."
The summing up aroused even more enthusiasm than the original speech.Madame la Princesse applauded; Claire, whose desire to be sent witha flag of truce to Île Saint-Georges became more and more earnest,applauded; the captain of the guards, whose business it was to thirstfor battle, applauded; and Lenet did more than applaud; he took Madamede Tourville's hand, and pressed it with no less respect than emotion.
"Madame," he cried, "even if I had not known how great is yourprudence, and how thoroughly you are acquainted, both by intuitionand study, with the grea